Thinking of trying DNA testing, it's on sale

[tokareva]

Ancestry DNA has a sale right now for $59. Is it worth it, what can I expect?

[Baeau]

Hopefully, Macseobang, will see this. I pm'd him a similar question, & received some good info.

[RodF]

Having done this and also used Ancestry.com for nearly a decade, I can say it is worth the effort. This is the type of report you will get. Then if there are matches, you can make contact with those individuals to see what is the basis for the match.

If you have genealogical data, it can be of great value to upload that as it helps make the connections with other researchers.

Yea, for $60 it's a worthwhile.

[tokareva]

This is the type of report you will get.

Wow,that does look interesting! Thanks.

[Old Building Prof]

Hi there. I'm a long-time DNA tester. My experience with Ancestry has been good for finding cousins, but for the breakdown of ancestral origins, I found the totals a bit odd. 23andme is better I think for the ancestral percentages (at least they seem to match what I know of the fairly elaborate paper trail family tree I have). I have recently sent in a test to LivingDNA, which I have hopes for because they break Britain down into multiple regions,and I'm very curious to see where this leads me. FamilyTreeDNA is way off in their autosomal testing, but for the Y-chromosome I think they still have the most exacting test. Anyway, hope this helps.

[Kiltedjohn]

I don't have enough knowledge to make comparisons. I have used Ancestry DNA, and have had some really useful results, making contact with relatives I never knew existed. I did find the ethnicity findings a bit wide and vague - it lumped Scotland and Ireland together, and my Cypriot connection wasn't specifically identified. (Not sure whether this last problem was because Ancestry need to do more work, or whether Cyprus has absorbed so many different ethnic groups that it is difficult to be more specific!!) The price that you quote sounds pretty good.

[RodF]

Hi there. I'm a long-time DNA tester. My experience with Ancestry has been good for finding cousins, but for the breakdown of ancestral origins, I found the totals a bit odd. 23andme is better I think for the ancestral percentages (at least they seem to match what I know of the fairly elaborate paper trail family tree I have). I have recently sent in a test to LivingDNA, which I have hopes for because they break Britain down into multiple regions,and I'm very curious to see where this leads me. FamilyTreeDNA is way off in their autosomal testing, but for the Y-chromosome I think they still have the most exacting test. Anyway, hope this helps.

We have a my daughter, my grams, and my results with Ancestry and then my son wanted to do a test and we did that with 23andMe. Agree that there was a bit more defined results with his test. Part of the challenge is the pool of tests used for any of these tests. If there are not enough folks with tests from a region, there may not be enough matches.

It's an interesting tool and I think Old Building Prof here has a lot of great summaries. Like any tool, there are limits and challenges, but it is an interesting tool for genealogists to have at their disposal.

[LKM]

First, I have nothing against DNA testing. I see it as a tool that can help if you know how to read the information. I recommend reading and watching reviews of the DNA companies before you decide. They do their best with the information they have, and some companies will let you upload the DNA information for a second opinion on ancestry if you used Ancestry or 23 and me. It looks like these second opinions are normally close to each other and are not far from the original.

From what I have seen Ancestry, and many others, tries to tell you where the family is from by showing the most common place or places where certain traits have been found, not all places where the traits are known to be found. As this is the case there could be traits that are found, just identified with the incorrect place. Scottish, Irish, and Welsh DNA might show as British Isles, Northern Europe, or simply Europe. Tracing ancient migrations is more complicated then we normally think as they have found people moved around more then expected before the middle ages. If the family has been in the US for a while there could be some unexpected results as people from all over the world have mixed together in the Americas.

I have also seen that most don't explain DNA or much about heredity. As there is a good chance that you have 20% through 30% from each grandparent, you can have from 0% through 50% from a grandparent with the exception of the Y chromosome. This means that even though it is on the family tree it might not show on the test. As most DNA tests take a while to give the results, I would recommend learning what you can about the subject while you wait on the results so you can best understand what they give you.

As a side note worth pointing out, Native American DNA can show as East Asia on these tests or with some Eastern Woodland tribes the DNA can show as Northern Europe. The reason for this is that there were at least three ancient migrations to the Americas with Y-DNA haplogroups Q, C, and R; listed more ancient to more recent. The routs and time frames are still being discovered for these migrations though all are now known to predate Classical Greece.

[macmanjim]

The genealogy person at my local society says Family Tree is the best and I've read that 23 and Me is better than Ancestry, but I don't know from experience. I like the various tests from Family Tree, but it looks like it can get expensive quickly. I'd like to hear more experiences before plunking down money.

[super8mm]

I have done all the test that Family Tree offers and the ancestry DNA test.

One thing to consider is that most of the companies only do Autosumal testing but Family Tree also does the Y-DNA.

Y-DNA is only passed from Father to Son so it is probably the best at tracing the male lines back through time.